


Pushing The Limit

by SatiricalDraperies



Series: Tolkien Gen Week 2020 [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Engineering, Female Friendship, Feminist Themes, Gen, Misogyny, Original Character(s), POV Original Female Character, Rocketry, Science, Women Being Awesome, Women in Engineering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25194511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatiricalDraperies/pseuds/SatiricalDraperies
Summary: Tanwetame finds out the truth about Tirion's premier aerospace engineer.
Series: Tolkien Gen Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819642
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020, Tolkien Gen Week 2020





	Pushing The Limit

**Author's Note:**

> Tolkien Gen Week 2020  
> day 5: diversity

Tanwetame doesn’t like sneaking around, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. The lecture is only open to engineering students, and the college of engineering is only open to men, and so Tanwetame finds herself breaking into the main Tirion lecture hall.

She slips in a side entrance, trying to walk like she belongs there. She doesn’t, of course, but no one has to know that. _Technically_ , all university students can pass through this building and _technically_ , she could be a literature or botany student so _technically_ , no one should have a reason to stop her. Still, the only lecture happening tonight is Master Sanaro’s unveiling of the results of his latest rocketry experiments. The vague excuses she’s prepared won’t hold up under any close scrutiny. She just has to hope no one will ask for her reasons, mostly because there’s no reason for Tanwetame to be here.

No reason, except that she’s fascinated by gravity and propulsion and pushing the limit in _everything_.

There’s no one at the door to the upper mezzanine of the hall where Master Sanaro is presenting, so Tanwetame cautiously pokes her head in. The coast is clear. Good. She positions herself partially behind the curtain, peeking out to try and see the stage.

Master Sanaro stands in the center of the stage next to a model of his latest rocket prototype. It’s a one-fourth scale representation; Tanwetame saw the much larger real thing when she took a detour through the yard where it was being built. Even the model is a thing of beauty: a series of increasingly smaller cylinders stacked up on top of each other culminating in a conical piece at the very tip. Tanwetame’s bet is that the rocket’s fuel is stored in the fairly thick bottom cylinder, but she’s not sure what the purpose of the cone is. Is it purely aerodynamic?

“With this latest success, I have once again proven that there is more to this world than the ground on which we walk,” Master Sanaro professes. The building’s intelligent design projects his voice all the way up to Tanwetame. “Not only is there more to this world, but there is more to this air. I have worked with my partners in the chemistry department to create a device to measure qualities of the air. It is not nothing, as previously theorized, but a measurable substance made of such different particles as the different rocks in the ground.

“This device, when activated at ground level, distinguishes two major substances as well as trace amounts of five others and counting! Further study reveals more and more distinct substances. 

“But you did not come here tonight to hear about this air,” he gestures a hand to indicate the air surrounding himself in the hall. Tanwetame leans in closer, not even trying to conceal herself behind the curtain anymore. She’s still in the shadows, not that anyone is looking, preoccupied as they are with Master Sanaro’s presentation.

“I have attached the device to my rocket,” he presses a hinge on the conical part of the rocket and a panel opens, revealing a bundle of wires and sensors. “And I have measured the sky!”

The audience breaks out into polite applause. 

“He has measured nothing.”

Tanwetame whirls around.

“The device works, to be sure. The chemists know what they’re doing. Our Master Sanaro here, not so much,” the woman snorts derisively at his name. “I’m Haldalote, by the way.”

“Tanwetame,” she shakes her outstretched hand. “Why are you here?”

Haldalote looks amused. “Figured I should see my work displayed.”

“Your work?” Tanwetame asks in shock. “But I thought—”

“That showman down there actually designed all of the rockets he claims as his? No,” Haldalote shakes her head. “I did all of the legwork, all of the initial calculations and failed tests and longshot theories. He just found my papers and recreated my experiments.”

“Then why does he get all of the credit? That’s hardly fair.”

“Tell me about it,” she rolls her eyes. “Since I wasn’t affiliated with the university, my papers were never officially published and I had no legal claim to my life’s work. It’s not that I need the recognition, more that he doesn’t. It hardly takes ingenuity to follow instructions. We aren’t heaping praises and accolades on every entry level student practicing Master Rúmil’s calligraphy, are we?”

“That does sound ridiculous,” Tanwetame admits. “How were you able to do your research in the first place? Did the college of engineering let you in?”

“Those bastards? Let a woman study? Never. I was able to convince the physics department to make an exception, though. They’ve let a few women in over the past couple years, but it’s rough. I didn’t see any other women in my time there, not even as lab assistants or administrative assistants. Learning the math was useful, but it wasn’t worth staying in the program. None of the other students took me seriously and the professors wouldn’t even acknowledge me in lectures. For all intents and purposes, I was on my own.”

“That’s horrible. I thought the professors would at least be helpful. Wouldn’t they want their students to learn?”

“Not all of their students,” Haldalote sighs. “I dropped out halfway through. If I was going to have to do everything myself, at least I didn’t have to be in an environment that clearly didn’t want me. I became friends with Ancaina, a woman working in the scrap metal yards, and she helped me find the materials I needed to build my prototype rockets. The two of us must have built at least thirty rockets before finally getting one to lift off. 

“Of course, it exploded a few moments later, but it was progress,” she laughs. “Even the failures—and there were plenty of those!—felt better than anything I had done at the university. We were learning and finding new ways to build rockets, different from anything the college engineers had tried. 

“And it worked! Almost too well, considering how they got wind of our experiments and started showing up to every launch. At first I was pleased that they were finally recognizing my work, but I shouldn’t have been so optimistic. After we got a rocket to re-land after being launched, my notebook went missing. I thought I had just misplaced it. A month later, Sanaro was given the rank of Master and his thesis contained pages of my notebook, copied directly.”

“I’m sorry,” Tanwetame says. She lays a hand on Haldalote’s arm. “I’m sorry he stole your work and I’m sorry I ever wanted to be like a liar and thief like him.”

“Don’t apologize,” Haldalote says. “The system is wrong for excluding people like us. We have to learn and satisfy our curiosity however we can, whether that means arguing with physics professors or sneaking into lecture halls.”

“I just want to know what’s out there! This world is so large and I can only imagine what wonders there are waiting to be discovered.”

“Come with me! My wife just added another lens to our telescope. I know she’d want to meet you and have you test it out. Ancaina loves showing off her work,” she laughs. “And then maybe I can show you what I’ve learned. I’m not much of a teacher, but…”

“That would be wonderful!” Tanwetame exclaims. “Thank you.”

“No,” Haldalote says. “It’s good to know that there are other women out there who want to build and learn. Thank _you_.”

**Author's Note:**

> support your local womxn in engineering! women are underrepresented in just about all STEM disciplines and are often discriminated against by their male counterparts. it's been getting better and the percentage of women in STEM fields is slowly increasing, but it's an uphill battle. we gotta band together and lift each other up. when one of us succeeds, we all succeed. 
> 
> (also, my technical experience is with computers and programming, not aerospace engineering, so any errors are due to that! I figured it was probably more *realistic* for elves to have rockets than computers so I went with that)


End file.
